


First Sight

by TheWhiteLily



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Love, Parenthood, Romance, true story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-06
Updated: 2017-10-06
Packaged: 2018-12-29 19:47:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12092154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheWhiteLily/pseuds/TheWhiteLily
Summary: This year makes twenty years since I met my husband at school camp. For me, the day we met will always be our anniversary.





	First Sight

**Author's Note:**

> For fan_flashworks 'Together'
> 
> Yes, this is a true story.

I don’t believe in love at first sight.  
  
I still don’t believe it, even though it happened to me.  
  
For so many years, I didn’t even know what had happened; I’ve never been very good at feelings. I certainly didn’t understand _this_.  
  
It was school camp. We were fourteen. We were on a walk—a forced march, of the usual camp kind—and on the way back, we fell into step together. I could speak, which doesn't always happen. He spoke too. Argued, really, but somehow it didn't make my throat close up over my words, and I argued  _back_.

We quickly outdistanced the rest of the group. It started to rain—or didn’t—depending on which one of us you asked. He was wrong. Obviously.  
  
And ten minutes into a conversation that flowed more easily and more mutually and more distant to any topic of real significance than any I’d had in my life, I felt a floodgate inside open with a _click_ of recognition. I didn't know what it meant. All I knew was that _this_ someone was someone who I would do everything in my power to spend more time with.  
  
I walked and talked—he walked and talked with me—and in what seemed like no time at all, it was over.  
  
We arrived at the dormitories; we went our separate ways.  The moment passed.  
  
A few days later, when I was alone, I decided to try the climbing wall on the other side of camp. I tried and tried and fell and fell. I failed and failed—but I was alone, and the embarrassment and the fear of judgement that would have driven me away from trying again wasn't there.  
  
I’ve always liked being alone.  
  
It took me an hour and a half of falling, again, and again, and again—of getting stuck, of giving up, of starting afresh—but I made it all the way to the other end of the wall.  
  
And as I dropped to the ground one last time, ten metres from where I’d last started, fingers blistered and toes stinging, tasting victory and exhilaration, there came a quiet round of applause.  
  
I’d thought I was alone. But he’d seen me.  
  
If he’d been anyone else, I would have been horrified. Blushed, stammered, run, hid. Spent the next few days having panic attacks at having been seen as an idiot, seen as imperfect, seen... at all. Had the applause been real? Had it been mocking? _How long_ had the applause been waiting?  
  
But that floodgate was still open—and it made me strangely brave. Trusting. It knew something I could not about this person.  
  
I swept an ironic bow in his direction; more proud, more nakedly _me_ than I’d ever been before another person in my life. And yet… despite his eyes on me, I felt calmly, blissfully alone.  
  
The moment was over; we went our separate ways without a word.  
  
It was four months before we called each other ‘friend’. Over a year before he called me ‘girlfriend’. Six years before he called me ‘wife’. And thirteen before I became ‘Mummy’.  
  
When I held my squishy newborn son in my arms, a blanket-wrapped bundle of needs seeking satisfaction, my body flooded with endorphins and loose attachment hormones, on a day I’d been told over and over again that I’d finally understand what it was to fall head over heels for someone the moment I saw them…   
  
I didn’t.  
  
I don’t believe in love at first sight. And I didn’t feel love. It wasn’t the most incredible joy I’d ever felt. I _was_... happy? Pleased. Relieved, that he was healthy. I’d always wanted children. I wondered, in a disconnected kind of way, if this was it. If this lukewarm satisfaction in a box ticked off my list was the prize of parenthood, for me.  
  
For ten months, I lavished almost every hour of every day on my son.  I held him, cleaned him, breastfed him, smiled at him, played with him, slept with him, wondered, wondered: is there something wrong with me?

No, not something wrong with me: is there something _else_ wrong with me? Why don’t I feel properly, not even now?

I noticed every milestone, celebrated every achievement.

Would I be sad if he died? It would be a terrible waste, of course. Clearly, he was an excellent example of a baby. I’d put a lot of work into him. A lot of resources. A lot of attention. Of course I’d be sad. Would I be devastated? Would it ruin my life forever? _Really_?  
  
At ten months old, he looked at me, all bright smile and clear eyes, and said, “Wa-wa-wa-wa-wa.”  
  
It didn’t mean anything. It was the opening of a conversation more distant to any topic of real significance than any I’d had in my life.  
  
Well, except for one, because this time I knew what that feeling meant, and I finally recognised that feeling I’d first known at fourteen for precisely what it was. That feeling of floodgates opening and my entire being saying... _you are mine._  
  
I hadn’t believed in love at first sight. I’d always assumed I fell in love later: slowly, sensibly. Love at first sight is a _ridiculous_ myth; it doesn’t make the least bit of sense to love someone you don't know.  
  
It took me ten months to fall in love with my firstborn son. Ten minutes to recognise the love of my life.  
  
But I don’t believe in love at first sight.  
  
Because love is more than just a set of floodgates opening, deep inside. Love is every day for twenty years, not closing them again.  
  
It’s more than just recognising a kindred mind in the quagmire of an alien land. It’s every day for twenty years, pushing and pulling through the mud in the same direction.  
  
It’s more than just wanting to do everything in your power to spend more time with someone. It’s every day for twenty years, being calmly, blissfully alone together.  
  
I don’t believe in love at first sight.  
  
But for me, that’s where it started.


End file.
